Thanks to the Internet's obsession with spoiling every movie/show/game months before they debut, big-budget productions operate with Manhattan-Project-level secrecy. They keep scripts in locked rooms surrounded by layers of security, and even use secret electronic watermarks to track down the sources of leaks and presumably murder them in their sleep.
That's why it's bizarre to see how, after all that trouble, the studios will sometimes turn around and spoil that shit anyway. Like when ...
#5. The Walking Dead's Facebook Page Spoiled Beth's Death For The West Coast
AMC
Seeing as how witnessing characters getting killed off without notice is the primary appeal of watching The Walking Dead (it's right there in the title!), you'd think AMC would be a little more careful about premature spoilers. Yet we've previously talked about how a DVD promo advertised "Shane's last episode" weeks before that episode actually aired. And much like the show's characters, no one learned any lessons from that mistake.
This time, it was with the young Beth Greene, who's introduced in season two and survives all sorts of bullshit in seasons three and four, just to get anticlimactically killed off in season five when she learns that stabbing an angry, gun-toting woman in the shoulder with tiny scissors is a bad apocalypse survival strategy. As soon as the episode aired, Walking Dead mourned its dead the only way people know how in the 21st Century: with a needlessly filtered Instagram photo.
AMC/Facebook
"We'll never forget you or your ridiculously large belt."
That would have been fine if whatever intern is in charge of The Walking Dead's Facebook page understood the concept of time zones. The show aired on the East Coast two hours before it reached the West (one hour before central), and that touching tribute was uploaded immediately after the credits rolled. So all those Californians who idly checked their Facebook feed while waiting for the episode to reach them had it spoiled. They responded with their own photos and impact font:
AMC/Facebook
"Well, West Coast, no one is making your dumb asses live in the past."
Nameless AMC Intern #27 quickly realized their mistake and pulled the photo, but it still appeared in people's feeds thanks to Facebook's algorithms and other people sharing it to make fun of it. That left the Walking Dead team with no choice but to apologize and promise it wouldn't happen again.
AMC/Facebook
"We'll continue to ignore your feedback about the overall quality of the show. Thanks for watching!"
Presumably this will be accomplished by sending every new employee to eight hours of Time Zone Camp. Don't miss the lunchtime lecture on daylight savings!
#4. Dexter's Season 6 DVD Begins With An Unskippable Promo Showing The End Of The Season
Showtime
The entire premise of Dexter is that he is a serial killer who does his business under the noses of the police (whom he works for) and, more specifically, his cop sister. So the "when will they finally figure out what's going on?" plot thread had been dangling out there since literally the first scene of the first episode. Finally, after six long seasons of watching Dexter kill other (increasingly silly) killers, numerous near-misses and fake outs, and the audience having their suspension of disbelief stretched to the breaking point, his sister Debra discovers his shocking secret. She walks in on him murdering Tom Hanks' son, a genuinely compelling ending to an otherwise dull season.
Showtime
And that's the last time you'll get one of those.
Now let's say you skipped watching the season as it aired because you heard mixed reviews, but grabbed the DVD as soon as it came out. So you pop in the first disc, and you're treated to a three-minute commercial in which Showtime rewards you for buying their product instead of committing piracy by bombarding you with suggestions to go buy more of their shows. This ad can't be skipped or fast-forwarded.
So fine, whatever, you'll sit through it while getting a head start on your popcorn. It's standard promotional fare -- a montage of David Duchovny womanizing and being punched, a Game of Thrones knockoff, Homeland, and Dexter. But rather than show generic Dexter footage like plastic sheets, donuts, and terrible analogies, they show the climactic scene viewers would have been hoping to experience spoiler-free hours later.
Showtime
Pictured: the viewer's expression.
Look, we don't have much sympathy for anyone on the Internet who screams "SPOILERS!" any time somebody discusses the ending of a show that aired six months ago. But if there is one time and place in which you should absolutely shut up about the ending of a story, it's at the moment when someone is sitting down to enjoy said story. It doesn't matter if, say, "everyone" knew Snape killed Dumbledore a few months after the sixth Harry Potter book came out, you don't start putting that shit on the title page. ("If you enjoy seeing Dumbledore get murdered at the end of this tale, perhaps you will like these other fine Scholastic titles ...")
#3. A Final Fantasy VII Commercial Showed Aeris' Funeral
Square Enix
Final Fantasy VII (the best Final Fantasy according to everyone not old enough to have played VI) is fondly remembered for many reasons, but perhaps chief among them is the death of Aeris. It's one of gaming's most iconic scenes, and it's a genuinely shocking twist in a medium not exactly known for them.
Square Enix
Jeez, a little diva-ish with the head bounce, aren't we?
What made it unique is that Aeris stays dead. You can't revive her -- all those experience points go out the window, no matter what the rumors on some sketchy gaming site claim. To drive the point home, you give Aeris a touching burial at ... well not at sea, but at, like, a big pond.
Square Enix
"Hey, are you sure you don't want to check her pulse before you drown-- okay, then."
For you non-gaming types who don't understand how Pong can resonate emotionally, we'll give you an analogy: Remember how in The Dark Knight, Batman's long-term love interest, whom we've known for a film and half, is unceremoniously killed off and never mentioned again? We all expected Rachel to survive, because no hero truly dies in a comic book movie (though their parents have an incredibly high mortality rate). Well, Aeris is to that game's hero what Rachel was to Batman.
Unfortunately, the twist was only a surprise to anyone who had managed to avoid the game's promotional materials. Have a look at this FFVII ad and you'll see Aeris looking as dead as a magical doorknob:
Gaming ads in 1997, much like the ads of today, emphasized graphics and sweet explosions over trivial details like "gameplay." Unlike today, games in 1997 looked kind of shitty. The game wouldn't have sold as well if the ads featured the blocky, faceless ur-humans you see for 99 percent of Final Fantasy VII. Still, they had 47 minutes of cutscenes to make a 30-second commercial from, so why on Gaia did they pick a shot giving away the game's biggest twist?
Square Enix
"Maybe they're playing Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board."
Visually, it's not immediately obvious that Aeris is being sent to a watery grave -- maybe she's relaxing on a flotation device, or this is a shot of an exciting new baptism mini-game. That's why the voice-over helpfully calls it "a love that could never be" while "Love" flashes on-screen, just to clear up any ambiguity about the fate of the game's love interest. Either they really wanted to spoil this plot point, or they wanted to make an obtuse reference to the scene where a crazy scientist locks Aeris and a sentient lion-dog-thing in a cage in the hope that they'll fuck.
Square Enix
Not a joke.
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